April 9: You're Laughing Alone

The night was winding down. Most of the guests had gone home and I was left to clean up their mess. As I swept around the black, circular tables, I came up with what I thought was a can't-miss joke. I started to laugh uncontrollably as I watched hypothetical snippets of me using my new joke through my mind's eye. My audience would fall over in fits of laughter as I performed each line with perfect timing and an unprecedented delivery.

Fast forward to me standing in the kitchen watching my first spectator walk away shaking her head. Thoughts of lunacy and pure confusion weaving through her mind as she goes on with her closing duties. She just didn't realize yet how funny my joke actually was. She'll think it over and a delayed reaction will engulf her immobilizing her from whatever activity she's engaged in at that given moment.... She just isn't hip enough to get it. My next audience will get the joke, for sure!

Throughout the course of a day, thoughts of hilarious acts and witticisms race through my head. Because I was born without a comic filter, I do and/or say everything that I "know" will be a hit. I can't help it. A random imitation of a passing aircraft. A spot on Guns N' Roses reenactment of Sweet Child O' Mine. A spinning, boomeranging tray on the ground. A dramatic avoiding of collision. A realistic pantomime of air guitar on a broom.

If I'm lucky, one in ten of these jokes, antics, or songs gets so much as a snicker. Rarely do my hopes of pure hilarity amount to anything more. I am my biggest audience. I give myself a standing ovation with every punchline. I am an audience of one and the show is sold out every night. I've been looking to expand my audience for twenty-seven years now to no avail.

I don't know how professional comics do it. I'm sure being legitimately funny helps a bit, but how do they put up with the rejection? Writing this blog, I've come up with a number of ideas/entries that I thought were comic gold only to receive zero response and reaction from readers. I guess I'll just keep writing, singing, sliding, spinning, yelling, bouncing, flying, and laughing by myself. Ha ha.